Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Mancini fury as City’s Rob bid stumbles

ROBERTO MANCINI is furious Manchester City are falling behind in the race to sign Robin van Persie.

HE'S NOT A HAPPY MAN ... Roberto is fuming

The City boss has become increasingly annoyed with football administration officer Brian Marwood for not securing Arsenal’s Dutch star.

Mancini was hoping to have signed Van Persie ahead of the club’s tour of China, with City due to play Arsenal in Beijing on Friday.

But the Etihad manager has been told that before a deal for Van Persie can be completed, he will first have to reduce the club’s wage bill by offloading at least one of Edin Dzeko, Emmanuel Adebayor or Carlos Tevez.

City have so far offered £15million — the highest bid so far — yet Arsenal insist they will not listen to offers below £20m as Manchester United, Paris St Germain and Juventus are also interested.

Arsenal, who play Malaysia tonight, have been preparing for City officials to make a second bid.

Juventus are ready to rival City with wages of £200,000 a week but they are not prepared to pay more than £16m.

United have so far bid £13m and Juve just £8m.

But Arsenal could turn down all offers of less than £20m and make Van Persie see out the final year of his contract.